


Where the Lovelight Gleams

by turtle_wexler



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Romance, marriage law
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:46:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28108791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turtle_wexler/pseuds/turtle_wexler
Summary: The Marriage Law is repealed, but Severus and Hermione still choose each other.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 59
Kudos: 397
Collections: Hearts and Cauldrons Gift Exchange, Snamoine





	Where the Lovelight Gleams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mersheeple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mersheeple/gifts).



Their divorce is finalised on the winter solstice.

They’ve been living apart for several months, ever since Hermione came to Sweden to pursue her second Mastery—in Charms. During the first month of her absence, she commuted back and forth, seeing him at weekends. She studied in what used to be their lounge, drinking coffee until she was nearly vibrating. Severus always ended up pulling the mug from her hands and saying, _Come to bed. You need rest._

Only, she didn’t rest, most of the time. Not until after she had been face down on the bed with Severus whispering how good she felt as he gripped her thigh and his hips snapped against hers.

After the Marriage Law was repealed, her anticipation-filled waits for a Portkey on Friday evenings came to an abrupt end. She had hoped he would ask her to stay. She didn’t want to intrude on his life—he was such a solitary man—but she thought he came to enjoy their time together. She thought he would choose her, even when he didn’t have to.

On the 23rd, she sits in a cafe, her books glamoured to look like ordinary novels. She listens to the Swedish being spoken all around her, trying to pick up some of it, but everyone talks too quickly. She catches familiar syllables now and then: inte, jag, de. She’s determined to learn the language, which is challenging when everyone speaks to her in English. Right now, all she can really say are things like, “Kvinnan dricker kaffe.”

There should be a potion to help with this. Something to recapture the language retention capabilities of early childhood. Would that damage the brain? She could write to Severus and ask his thoughts.

Realising she has read the same sentence five times without remembering any of it, she closes the books. It’s no use. With her mind full of her life back in the UK, she cannot concentrate. God, she’s being ridiculous. It is pleasant here. She should be happy. She is free to pursue everything she wants to do. 

Fat flakes of snow are falling as she leaves the cafe, outlining everything in white. It snowed on their wedding day, too. She remembers walking with Harry through a winter wonderland in her sensible work robes, holding on tight to his arm.

“Are you sure?” Harry asked. “About him, I mean? You have plenty of other options.”

Hermione nodded. “I’m sure.”

None of her other options cast covert glances at her in the staffroom. None of them found excuses to linger in the corridor outside her office. None of them engaged her in long, lively debates about Potions and Charms and whatever the idiots in the other departments of the Ministry were up to on a given week. There wasn’t anything between her and Severus at that point, but there was the possibility of something. If nothing else, she knew they would have mutual respect.

The snowflakes were still melting in her hair as Hermione and Severus said their vows. They agreed on the shortest ceremony possible. No frills, no flowery language. Hermione had never been the sort of girl to imagine her far-off wedding day, but if she had, it would have been in a snow-hushed forest. It cast a romantic veil over the day. 

They caught a Portkey instead of Apparating to their “honeymoon” destination. One touch of a broken Christmas tree bauble, and they were whisked away to a cottage in the Peak District. The snow fell faster there. Inside the cottage with the fire going, it was almost cosy. Almost real. 

They started their marriage with awkward silences. Unpacking their suitcases, getting dinner. Stalling. Eventually sitting in on opposite ends of the sofa. Finally, he said goodnight and retreated to his room.

They didn’t sleep together that night—not in any sense of the word. Severus let her have the giant bed in the big bedroom, taking one of the quilt-piled single beds in the second room for himself. 

Sleeping together didn’t come for weeks after, when Hermione noticed the way he placed a hand on the small of her back as they entered a room together, the way his touch lingered when he passed her a cup of coffee at breakfast (prepared exactly as she liked it: splash of milk, no sugar). One rainy afternoon, burning with curiosity, she placed an experimental kiss on his lips. 

That little kiss escalated to snogging on the sofa, his hands slipping under her top. Feeling bold, she fumbled with the waistband of his trousers, waiting for his murmured yes before touching him—before shoving her knickers aside and sinking down on him. They stayed motionless for a moment after her hips were flush with his. It felt like a forbidden tryst—both of them still mostly clothed. Not like the consummation of a marriage.

In the months that followed, it was as if they’d discovered something entirely new. A hidden language, unspoken by anyone else. Surely there was nothing as sublime as the way they fit together, the way he could make her mind go blissfully blank when he touched her.

And then the Marriage Law was repealed, and there were no more touches. Severus stopped resting a hand on her knee under the breakfast table—stopped lifting her onto the breakfast table and burying his face between her thighs. Fearing the worst, she asked if he wanted a divorce. She can still hear his reply. 

_Perhaps that would be best. Neither of us chose this_.

She _had_ chosen him, though. Again and again, with every touch and every kiss, she chose him.

She can’t keep doing this. She needs to go back to England, tell him how she feels. Even if he turns her away, says it meant nothing to him, at least she will have tried.

There is an owl waiting at her flat: one of the barn owls with wise, round faces that are used at the post office in Hogsmeade. The brown paper wrapped parcel it carries contains no note, but she does not need a signature to identify the sender of this gift. Cushioned inside a nest of black velvet is a necklace with a Christmas tree bauble pendant. 

It is cracked in exactly the same way as the bauble-turned-Portkey that she and Severus took to their honeymoon cottage.

A lump forms in her throat. With shaky fingers, she puts the necklace on. The chain is cold against her skin, the pendant a reassuring, slight weight. The owl receives the entirety of the owl treats she has on hand in the flat. 

“You deserve it,” she says, sniffling as the owl hoots gleefully and dives face first into the food. “And you’ll need fuel for the long journey home.” 

She doesn’t even pack. Once the owl flies away, so does she: down to the street, where she hails Nattbussen—Sweden’s version of the Knight Bus. She is too worked up to attempt Apparition. The Swedish-flag-blue bus roars towards her and comes to a screeching stop. In her halting Swedish (because she will _not_ give up on her attempts to learn), she tells the conductor she needs to go to the Ministry.

* * *

All of the scheduled Portkeys are fully booked. There’s no room for her to squeeze in and place a finger on a dented tin can or old tyre. Hermione gets placed on the standby list. Sitting in an uncomfortable chair for hours, she drinks coffee and vows to hunt down whoever is responsible for the aggressively festive music being played over the wireless. All of this warbling about going home for Christmas. At this point, it is openly mocking her.

 _Why_ are all of these people travelling at the last minute? If something doesn’t open up soon, Hermione swears she will pluck one of the decorations off of that sad, lopsided tree next to the check-in desk and make an unauthorised Portkey right in front of everyone here. It is getting late; there is only one more official Portkey leaving for the UK before everything shuts down for Christmas.

If she had let Harry and Ron help her overcome her aversion to flying, she could take a broom. All that way. In the freezing cold. Over the sea. Her fingers twitch towards a wooden, star-shaped decoration, and then it happens: they call her name. One touch of a dented old pan, and that hooked-behind-the-navel sensation carries her back to Britain. Back to Severus.

* * *

Their first Christmas together was spent in darkness, cursing the leaky roof in their cottage. The water flowed along the wires and poured out of the light fixture in their bedroom, shorting a fuse and soaking their bed. 

“I don’t know why you insist on doing this now,” Severus said from the bottom of the ladder. “Surely it can wait.”

“Water damage is nothing to play around with.” Sheets of rain hammered down, dripping into her eyes. At this rate, _she_ was going to get water damaged. “Continuing to yell at me about it is bloody distracting.”

“Well, this rickety old ladder is a death trap.”

“It’s fine.”

“Did you forget that I can fly?”

“No.” She had. “It’s _fine_. I’m almost done.”

Once she was so high up the alleged death trap of a ladder that it made her dizzy to look down, Hermione cast Reparo on the roof.

“That should hold,” she said, shouting to be heard over the pounding rain. “I’m coming back down.”

And come down, she did. The bottom rung snapped under her weight, sending her falling on her arse on the muddy, soggy grass. 

She held up a hand before Severus could speak. “If you say you told me so, I will pull you down here with me.”

He snorted. “I’m not opposed to the idea of rolling around in the grass with you, but the current weather rather puts me off. And what will the neighbours think?”

Laughing, she grabbed his offered hands and yanked him down into the mud. If any of the neighbours noticed him kissing her soundly before they got back up, neither Hermione nor Severus ever heard anything about it.

After that, they went back into the house and took a long bath together in the big tub, taking turns re-warming the water with a mild Heating Charm. He ran a bar of citrus scented soap over her body, pausing now and then press lazy kisses along her neck. 

They couldn’t switch the lights back on; they needed to wait for the wiring to dry out and get it checked by someone more qualified by either of them, so after their Lumos-lit bath, they dried their mattress with charms and levitated it in front of the fireplace in the lounge. The gentle, flickering glow of the fire made his skin look golden as she propped herself up on her elbows and watched him trail his lips from her knee up to her inner thigh.

This Christmas is much like that one, at least as far as the weather goes. There is no snow in Britain: only ceaseless, dismal rain. The cottage is dark when Hermione finally reaches Hogsmeade. Severus is almost certainly asleep, but she does not consider finding somewhere else to stay until morning. She pounds on the door with a closed fist, heart in her throat, not stopping until a light turns on inside.

The door flings open, and there he is: wearing the cosy pyjamas she bought him, only looking marginally less grumpy when he realises it is her.

“Hi,” she says. It’s all she _can_ say. He sent her the necklace and it _has_ to mean something and, oh, Merlin, she has missed him. All of her words fall away.

“Hello,” he says. Impossible to read, like always, but she has come all this way.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, Hermione touches the broken bauble pendant. “Thank you for my necklace. It… God, I had so many things I wanted to say. I was already planning on coming here when the owl arrived, and then it did, and… I miss you so, _so_ much.”

He cups her cheek, sleep-warm hand thawing her chilled skin. “I am glad to hear it. I was prepared to pretend Potter had sent the gift if it was unwelcome.”

Hermione laughs. Instead of attempting more words, she flings herself at him. Her arms wrap around his shoulders, and her mouth finds his as easily as it used to. He doesn’t hesitate; his hands grip her waist. His tongue brushes against hers. Holding him tighter, she presses herself as close to him as possible. 

“Can I start visiting on weekends again?” she asks. “I want to be with you.”

“Perhaps you needn’t travel back and forth,” he says, not meeting her gaze. Hermione’s stomach doesn’t have time to plummet before he adds, “I could take a sabbatical while you complete your studies. I have been meaning to work on an improved Potions textbook.”

“You want to join me in Sweden?” She beams. “Really? That would be brilliant. I’ll teach you Swedish. Repeat after me: smörgåsbord.”

“I already know—wait, is that how it is pronounced?”

“Yes.” She kisses his jaw, his stubble scratching her lips the way it used to when she woke him up in the mornings. The nearness of him makes her head go fuzzy, and the only Swedish she can come up with is, “Ett får.”

“Ett får. What does that mean?”

“A sheep.”

He snorts. “Useful.”

“It might be. You never know. Oh, I almost forgot. Do you think it would be possible to recreate the language learning capacity of early childhood with a potion?”

“Perhaps.”

She feels the word more than she hears it—murmured against her lips. Hermione _hmms_. Severus smells like the laundry detergent they always used. Like their bed. Her fingers wander down to the first button on his pyjama top.

He yanks her fully inside the cottage, slamming the door and pressing her against it. There is no more Swedish—no more English words, either, apart from _yes_ , and _I missed you_ , and _please_. It is like their first time: desperate and fast, clothing shoved out of the way. His gaze holds hers as he moves inside her, and Hermione sighs happily.

She is home.


End file.
